Sun's MySQL acquisition consolidates Open Source Power

Sun's recent purchase of MySQL met with a variety of reactions. Some wondered what Sun has to gain besides PR. Others, aware of Sun's long alliance with Oracle, accusingly predicted that the company would let MySQL crumble from lack of support and be overcome by competition. Many people, however, see the acquisition as a sign of the growing influence of open source as a business model. Both companies have a strong history of open source support, and both Java and MySQL are available under the GPL license. The future of both of these companies now merged together will be a strong indicator to the corporate world of the viability of the open source model. If successful, these companies will have the power to continue enrich the pool of freely available software, and more importantly, to invite other companies to do the same by their example.